Working from Home? Try These Open-Source Tools
WITH THE SPREADING pandemic of coronavirus, or COVID-19, many companies are asking employees to work from home. For bigger businesses, enterprise solution offerings from Google or Microsoft might be the default, but some companies may not want to have to
A lot of workers will be working from home in the coming weeks. As a result, they will rely on communication and collaboration tools as standins for being at their desks or in meeting rooms. There are offerings from the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Zoho, but there are lots of great open-source offerings, too.
I wrote recently about Keybase ( https://keybase. io) and its collaboration tools. While Keybase’s first goal is to facilitate easy encryption tools, it offers Slack-like teams and private chat. Keybase also offers private, encrypted online file storage (like Dropbox) that can be shared with individuals or teams. Keybase recently added a Google Meet bot, which when invoked with “!meet” creates a link to a Google video conference.
Slack and Atlassian’s HipChat are big players, but to get the most out of them, you have to pay. There are two more platforms worth a mention, though. Rocket Chat ( https://rocket.chat) and Mattermost ( https://mattermost.com) are selfhostable Slack replacements available under the MIT license. The basic features (such as unlimited chat history) are free; enterprise licenses are required for more advanced features. Both have apps for iOS, Android, Linux, MacOS, and Windows. For file-hosting, Nextcloud ( https://nextcloud.
com) has long been a staple solution. It offers a suite of plugins in addition to filehosting and sharing capabilities. Plugins and features include team chat, calendars, notes, contact management, and more. For larger teams, I recommend hosting Nextcloud on a reasonably fast server and using a MySQL database instead of the default SQLite database back end. One of my favorite things about Nextcloud is the ability to use a ton of different storage back ends for files, including Google Drive, Amazon S3-compatible object storage, and more. I’ve had mixed results with its Android and Linux desktop clients, which can be buggy.
If you just need file storage and sync without the extra features of Nextcloud, SparkleShare ( https://
sparkleshare.org) offers a solid file-sharing and sync option. Both SparkleShare and Nextcloud can encrypt files at rest, so your files are only available via the application. This means that if your remote storage is compromised, your files remain unreadable.
For video conferencing, Google’s Hangouts and Microsoft’s Skype are big players, as is Zoom, which, depending on your experience, is either great or terrible. One of the open-source tools that can replace those services is Jitsi ( https://
jitsi.org). It isn’t a standalone app, but a secure video-conferencing solution for other projects. Rocket Chat uses Jitsi to implement its video-conferencing capabilities.
Finally, I’d like to throw in plain old Git (with GitHub, GitLab, or another remote host). It’s a great collaboration tool for text-based files. If your work lends itself to plain-text formats (Markdown, Restructured Text, HTML, LaTeX, etc.), consider using Git instead of the common filename madness of “document.doc,” “document-1.doc,” “document-1-final.doc,” and so on.
There are a lot of open-source tools to help get work done while away from the office. Stay safe and healthy out there.
Alex Campbell is a Linux geek who enjoys learning about computer security.
One of my favorite things about Nextcloud is the ability to use different storage back ends.